 Good evening. We're live. Happy holidays from Channel 17 and CCTV. I'm Lauren Glendavidian and we're here at our annual holiday party here at Channel 17 Studios in the heart of the Old North End of Burlington. And I'm so pleased to welcome you. If you want to stop by, it's 5.15. It is the 15th of December and there's still time. We're having the party till 7. So come on over. We'd love to see you. We have all kinds of wonderful people. It's not election year this year, so we're not seeing as many politicians, but we might see a couple mayoral candidates later on because it is town meeting. Oh, that's right too. Richard Kemp is here with me. Richard, welcome. Thanks for coming. Well, thank you very much and I also want to extend an invitation to folks to come and but taking some delicious food that you didn't mention and it's just absolutely sumptuous. I haven't even gotten to the dessert table. Well, you've got to kind of have your basics first. You just got to the appetizers. Now, Richard Kemp, you may know he is the host of near and far, which has been running on Channel 17 for many, many years. How many years, Richard? Do you remember? Well, it's confidential. I can't give out that information, but you have had many shows with some amazing guests over 100. Is that right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's impressive. And it's only because you help and make that available for any citizen who wants and you don't have to be a citizen to use it. Yeah. Anybody who wants to use this and has something to say or something to share with. And that's what public access is all about. Make media. And can you tell me any of the recent shows that you've had, folks I know you've been excited about in the past couple months. Tell us about one or two of those folks that you've interviewed. Oh, you have touched on my memory and it's shot. Oh, man. Well, there was a guy. There was a guy. And you came in, you said, this guy is incredible. And he had done some community-based work. Was it abroad or here? I mean, you have the personality parade. People who are activists and who are actively engaged in changing the world. And that's what's so interesting about your show. Well, the other thing is that people can go to the archives and pull up programs. In fact, just recently I had Elijah Bergman take over my progressive thought program because I couldn't be there to run it. And he ran it. And I watched the whole thing last night. And then I had to get back to him and said, what a wonderful job he did. He was a little nervous about it. Do you watch that online? Yeah, online. Yeah. Right. So it was kind of night. And I think that sort of technology makes it very accessible and available. So I couldn't be on the show, but I couldn't see the show. And I couldn't see it at the same time. But I could see it a day later. Well, and also, you know, the live show, the Live at 525 show streams live on the on the internet so you can watch that while it's happening. Yes. And I'm delighted that having been around CCT for some time to see the increased technology and making stuff really available for people to see. And it has to do with the person standing next to me. Makes that happen. And all the people in this room and your staff too. Unbelievable group of people. I mean, the election coverage we did the season started two months early. And there we are. The Democratic Caucus covering that with a live stream from two locations, the Democrats and the progressives. Right. I saw that. And so that helps to help the population know about what's going on, because maybe people couldn't get out to it or weren't there. And it's just supporting democracy in a very important way should be happening all over the country. I don't know. But I don't think so. Well, I was glad to be in my house on Sunday night watching you speaking in at H.O. Wheeler School. That was terrific. So we're going to give out some awards tonight. Oh, and maybe you might you might want to help me. We have with the first we're going to talk to LC Nova Hines. And LC, LC, come on over. I've got your award here. Welcome. Nice to see you. Thanks so much for being a great volunteer. Let's stand in the light. Come on over in the light. And then we got Richard here with us. We're all hopping in on this one. So you have you get acknowledged as a Channel 17 TV volunteer and willing guest. So when we're short of guests, sometimes you chip in, which is awesome. And you're consistent. And you come every what one night of the week do you come every Monday night and and tell us a little bit about what you get out of being here at Channel 17? Well, I mostly come for sorry. I mostly come for mainly an educational experience because I get to listen to a lot of smart people talk about a really a lot of really smart things. And I feel like I get some additional information out of it. Also, it's just it's nice because I get to learn a lot more about technology since I work around technology when I'm here. So that's what I think I mainly get out of it. And what grade are you in now? I don't like to tell people my age. Well, it's all right. But I mean, are you almost going to college soon someday? No, not soon. I don't like to help you my age because people just freak out because I'm a lot younger than I look. Yeah, well, you're also a lot smarter than you know, your age might be. I mean, so that's the thing. So it doesn't really matter chronologically what age we are. Right, Richard? Right? Yeah, because I don't tell my age, either. Except I was born in 1932. Were you really? I was born in 1960. So there. And I still like to think of myself as precocious. So in any event, this is about LC. So here, I'd like to acknowledge you for all your work and your commitment to channel 17. And thanks for giving us some quotes that we could use for the annual campaign. It's awesome. It's been really helpful to do that. And any any messages that you have for people that might be thinking about volunteering? Yes, definitely volunteer because it's a good educational experience. And you'll definitely enjoy it and it won't get boring. And it's just it's a really good opportunity. I recommend taking it. Thank you so much, LC. It's great to see you. Really great to see you really. Thanks a lot. So you know, we have when you do your show, whenever you do a live show, the folks that run the cameras are all volunteers. Is that right? Oh, I didn't realize that LC and Henry Prine, who we're just about to talk to, I have moved up from camera work to directing. Oh, wow. Here comes Henry Prine right now. Henry, come on up. Nice to see you. Hi. Thanks for joining us. You know Richard Kim? Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about why what you do here at channel 17 and why you do it. Well, I volunteered here on Monday nights for the live show doing directing or camera work. And I do it because it's fun. And it's really a great way to learn about politics and get your hands on technology and stuff like that. So come into the light a little bit more. So tell us about some of the politics that you stay on top of being here. Well, you hear like it's different than just reading the newspaper because you have all sorts of different views you get on Monday nights. You have the Democrat show, Peggy Lewis does a show. And so you expose all these different stuff that's happening now. And it kind of it informs you really well. It's really interesting because you get to, while you're directing, you're not only putting on the show, but you're really listening in and hearing what the people are saying. And you help out on election day in the morning when we do the exit voices. Tell us a little bit about what that experience is. Well, that's one of my favorite days of the year. I always look forward to going out with Megan in the morning and interviewing people at the polls. And I don't know, you just get, you get kind of a sense of why people are out there and why elections matter to them. And especially when the big ones come around, like the Obama election, there was a lot of people out there and it was all of them have stories to tell. So it was nice to hear what those people are to say. How does this compare with what you're doing in school? School, I mean, you have social studies class and you hear a little bit about what's going on now and then, but you're learning about history 200 years ago and you don't hear much about what's going on right now. So this is a much more interesting way to stay on top of current events. It's wonderful, Henry. And are you going to college soon? I think so, yeah. I'm a sophomore in high school right now. So yeah. A couple years. And are you, are you thinking at all about what you might do or where you might go? I'm thinking a little bit, but it's, it's really hard. There's so many different fields I could go on to, but. That's because you have a really open mind. And so people with open minds have a lot of options in front of them. So thank you so much for being with us. And here's a little free speech champion of 2011 award. And thank you so much, Henry. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks, Henry. That's kind of amazing. This person is a sophomore in high school, right in the middle of the technology and doing it. I mean, I'm, it's, it's exciting. What were you doing when you were a sophomore in high school? By comparison. Riding my bicycle and chasing girls. Is that right? I bet you're pretty cute. There was no public access in the 40s. Well, and there was only one or two channels, really. I mean. Well, and as a kid, we didn't have television. Really? Maybe television wasn't really around in the mass media kind of thing. That's right. Andy Crawford, welcome. Thank you. Andy Crawford is our, our tech whiz. He makes things happen. I try to. And you know, to just even give a small indication of the kinds of things that you do. Why don't you just talk about what you did in the last week? What I did in the last week. Well, last, the last week, I've been spending time getting stuff ready for all the live coverage that we've been doing of the caucuses and of current rights announcement. And, you know, a lot of it's just making video available on various websites from our live streams. So. And I think it would be interesting for people to know how many folks have been watching online, the live coverage. Yeah. So for, I believe, the, the cliffhanger, Democratic Mayoral Caucus, we had about 1200 or 1300 people watch that. And then we had 700 or 800 watch the final, final voting round, the fourth round. And then Kurt writes, we didn't have too many people watch Kurt writes announcement, but I think people were more hinge wanted to know the results of the other two, but we had about 34 or 35 people watch Kurt writes announcement. So. There was no contest there. Exactly. There's no contest. We know it was, it was sort of a foregone conclusion, you know. So, yeah, but the challenge, I think the challenge that CCTV faces is, you know, we do all our video in-house, which means we, we basically are our own content deployment network, which means we, we stream all of our own video, we have it all on it on, on our own servers. We don't use services like Amazon or YouTube. And so that's, you know, it's an investment in trying to keep that local and trying to keep the access to that, you know, within our control. And I think that that's one of the things that makes CCTV, CCTV different from a lot of other content providers. So, it also makes it more challenging and makes a lot more work for people like me, but we try and do our best in terms of making it available. And hopefully next, next summer we'll have rolling out some new video features, and it'll be even spiffier and available on more devices. So, Andy, do you see anything coming down the pike that's going to change the technology and the way we watch TV? Yeah, well, the way we watch it in the content. Yeah. The technology around it. For sure. I know. I mean, when, when the CCTV first put the video up in this, in a content management system, which was in 2007, you know, the world of video on the web was very different. And just in, you know, four or five short years, we've gone from basically flash player, and we've gone from video being sort of a rare thing on the web to pretty much being ubiquitous. And from no standards based anything about video on the web to HTML5, which means, you know, in many cases no longer needing a browser plug-in to watch video on the web. And so right now there's a huge sort of like struggle over, you know, people that own, own the lines, the ISPs and the telecom companies and the cable companies. And, you know, the fact that they can more easily monetize an IP, an internet protocol based content delivery system. In other words, they can get more information about how they're delivering ads, how many people are watching the ads and all that type of stuff. So we're seeing a sea change in the, in the way marketing done no longer is it like the Nielsen ratings for even major studios anymore. They're all interested in like how do we get the information about who is watching what, how popular it is, and, you know, really trying to focus in. And it's, it's all being driven by advertising, but it's like, so it's, it's a little scary because the web provides so much more capability for people to get information about who is watching, how long they're watching, what they're watching. And so it's, you know, it ends up, it ends up, it ends up bringing issue, bringing up issue, all the issues of like, you know, do you want to have Google like automatically giving you lists of content based upon what you previously watched, what you're interested in, you know, and leads us to this possibility of getting into a, a situation where you, you, you hear the things you want to hear and you see the things you want to see and you don't necessarily see other points of view. So, you know, we think it's important here that people see other points of view and have access to the, all the media that they have. And, you know, you know, net neutrality is still out there and who knows, there's been a push to for ISPs to actually control content based upon what type of content is that's flowing over their network. So, like a Comcast you have a cable modem or a Burlington telecom would be able to say, this traffic is streaming video traffic, I'm going to do a surcharge on this and, or this is streaming video traffic from Amazon and I don't, I don't have an agreement with them or whatever, so I'm going to block this content. So there's a, there's a real risk of as we move from an analog or digital cable to a direct over-the- internet viewing experience for ISPs, internet service providers and others to control that content in a much more serious way. It's not happening now, but who knows in four or five years we might, might be a very different media landscape and, you know, sometimes even these cable companies are starting to buy up media companies and or vice versa sort of make sure that everyone has a foothold in every, in every sort of category if you will, media creators and media, media distributors and the people that own networks that the media flows over in that, in that system. Which is why having local content that we have local access to and local control over is so important and we really couldn't do it without Andy because what you bring to the table and what you understand and know is, is absolutely essential for us to move this programming to these new platforms. So thank you so much for being our technical guy fixing the problems, finding the solutions and identifying new dimensions. Thanks Andy. Thanks Andy. Breathtaking. Several liberties are coming into play here with corporations being able to control the content or what goes on and doesn't go on and that's kind of serious. Did you see, did you see Jeff Chester when he came? Jeff Chester talked about that and I'm going to say something about that in a minute but Phil Levine is here and Phil Levine is personally keeping the doors to local city government open and I have to just say that I admire the work that you're doing so much and I'm so grateful. You are covering events that we don't cover meetings. Tell us a little bit about why you're motivated to go to city hall and cover the finance board and I think it's important to follow the money and I think it's really important for people to be informed and if they aren't there it's through this vehicle that you're providing the to the community that allows people to be informed you know. I think that's really important okay. So I think the whole community should really be grateful that we got channel 17. It's a gift. Well it is a gift but it would be if unless anybody opened the package like you like Richard it would be a gift that remained unopened so I think that that's why what we feel is so important that these facilities are here for someone like you to learn how to use the I mean and it's been a while you know it's taking you a while to really get the hang of it's pretty complicated sometimes. And every once in a while you know you kind of forget where you're at and get a call for help. And then the fire brigade standing by. Yeah Jeff's been really good at helping out with that you know. And then Richard you know he does a show he hosts a show so he just sits here behind the desk and that's a good deal. It's a little easier. It is. But whatever's so neat about it is I mean I don't have to pay to get a half hour. And no one is censoring who I bring on or what we talk about. Oh that's magnificent I mean in this society. It's important for all these angles to be seen by the public. Because we know on regular TV they don't get to see all these angles. You know and it's really you know there's a whole bunch of censoring that goes on. We know that you know. We don't have that here. Well thank you Phillip we really appreciate it. My pleasure. Philippine Channel 17 community producer shining the light in the often unseen places. Well thank you. Thank you so much. So Don McDonald is here and Don McDonald keeps us straight. I have to say there's a lot of work that goes into running Channel 17 and CCTV and it's not just making TV shows it's keeping all our data organized and not only does Don McDonald come every day for three every day as a volunteer for three or four hours a day. Yeah yeah yeah but I do some I do my own shows too and you know that's right. But why is it important for you to come here and help us you know with the data but I mean that's what you do but there's a bigger there's something bigger for you. It's it's the community. I mean I love the community and I love the community we live in and you know I'm retired and it's just a great place and you know I get to have some of my shows once in a while my own shows this kind of thing. And what your particular area of interest is transportation. Right specifically inner-city bus transport and developing basically a replacement for Vermont Transit and also honoring Vermont Transit's history. We've done quite a few shows on that and we I've been talking to people from mega bus about the service that just started and the state also has a lot of ideas that are coming up so we gotta keep the eye on that. Yeah well you are I mean personally Don is keeping his eye on it and not only do we have these amazing archives here video archives but Don is a living archive of Vermont. Is that right? Yes yes yes you had it we had a discussion earlier today on that and I've decided that I have to I gotta do something I gotta figure it out where I can put what I got up here on the paper or something. Don I want to give you a little information that probably make your heart feel good. I got on the bus going to going to Shelburne and I couldn't get a C. The bus were full and that doesn't happen very often. Well no it's happening more. There's several runs that CCTA has had to add extra coaches because of the demand. Just recently the federal authority started made them run two extra runs on the S-extruction run in the evening to cover for the crowding. Now on Saturdays if you try and take the run that goes out to U-Mall that's packed and we're talking crescent loads where where the passengers are up to the yellow line and the driver can't accept any passengers somebody has to get off and wanted somebody to get on but I just took I just came out on the on the north end loop run and that was a 700 series bus it's a fairly large bus and it was packed and it shouldn't be today because the kids are gone from UVM right now it's exam time and so theoretically it should be a light time but I've gone to Montpere where there's been standing room on the run the month they've had to put some extra runs on the link they have one in the morning come from Waterbury that just services the Waterbury run because I got a lot of people coming from from from Stowe and Morrisville to connect with that run so it's uh you know it's growing and there's there's a lot of demand out there I think in my mind it's been it's been fortified by a lot of statistics you know Don thank you you're amazing and I wait come back Don McDonald's CCT volunteer volunteer keeping it all in order and having a great time doing it thank you free speech advocate yes man thank you thank you so we're having a great time here at the cctv channel 17 holiday party 2011 we're so glad you're joining us I'm here with Richard Kemp we are honoring our free speech advocates and we have Jenny Davis here and Jenny Davis bag in hand she's ready to go thank you for joining us nice to see you hi Richard thank you so much what a nice event it's a great event and thank you for all you do all year round well we'd like to thank you because you are a free speech champion of 2011 and I want to just Jenny Davis who is a channel 17 community producer makes community connections and uses the community media to make it happen yes we do well thank you very much this is so nice yeah I I feel like I'm accepting this on behalf of all of the neighborhood planning assemblies in Burlington who definitely utilize airtime on channel 17 and cctv we're really grateful to be able to have the meetings on throughout the year it enables people who can't make it to the meetings to be able to still see what's going on and participate in that way and I also know that there's people who watch different pieces of meetings from different wards wards that they don't necessarily live in but they're interested in a particular agenda item so you being here makes it possible for that to happen so thank you for this honor and recognition and thanks for this great party and for everything you do Jenny don't stop what you're doing yeah I mean it's a great credit that we have neighborhood planning assemblies that are vital and you play an important role in in hurting the cats and helping make make the mechanism of neighborhood assemblies really work and make them relevant for people to come and get information and try to make change on a neighborhood level yeah thank you for saying that I feel like there's a lot of people in burlington involved with the npa's who work really hard every month to organize the agendas and get people to turn out and then of course just the people who come to the meetings burlington is really unique in that we have npa's as a forum for people to engage if they so choose so and you know there's a lot of elected officials who who come to those meetings and it's a chance for people to connect with their leaders you know in their neighborhood as opposed to in in a bigger venue like hontoite so it's a good thing it's all good thank you so much thank you we really appreciate it happy holidays happy holidays to see you both jenny davis jenny davis is with the community and economic development office in the city of burlington and she's the queen of the npa's we're so glad she's here thank you so um bill aswad is has been doing a program here he is a representative he was a long-time city counselor and bill aswad has been doing a program here for 18 years here he comes and monday is his last show bill aswad god bless you nice to see you thank you so much you know richard kemp yes i do your last show i did my show i've been doing it i did it for 18 years yeah come sit so the camera and monday will be my last one i think and who's your who's your guest on monday um i'm i'm trying to remember oh wineburger oh you're a marrow marrow yeah great yeah i got the Dave sharp you know i had my co-host yes so i get he's going to take over the program yeah and why have you done this show for 18 years for so long well i just like to keep busy i don't like to sit and vegetate so i keep looking for something that's interesting and i hope i make a small contribution well the show was originally the road scholars yes it was it started out as the road scholars because you were on the transportation committee is that right at that time and i had sonny audette with me that's right and i had to tell sonny we asked questions the guests that we have answers questions sonny talked and talked and talked and talked and i got them aside after them after one of our sessions i said sonny we asked questions we don't do the talking and then you change the name i change it to the legislative report that's right yeah i no longer road scholars but you've had the governor on the speaker all kinds of i've had i've had at least two governors on and uh and the speaker and some senators and some good good guests it's been amazing i really appreciate your dedication and you've never missed a show pardon you've never missed a show i've never missed a show no i mean come on we're talking 18 times 12 18 years wow what's that two hundred something shows so bill aswad veteran live show host for showing up and speaking to the voters for 18 years well thank you very much i'm glad thank you so much great to see you the great job that you do thank you we appreciate it this is like maybe you're the grandfather of public health no no oh of television grandfather of television here i'm wondering i'll be 90 in january i'm 90 that's awesome i'm just gonna ask curl if we can keep going can we keep going can we keep going can we keep going okay we're gonna keep going so thank you so much we've got some more people to honor but bill you are awesome this will go on my refrigerator door awesome good i should put some magnets on there that would work oh my goodness we got some stars here james giro is here james welcome thank you james you are the artful word you have been producing tv for a long time and you handcrafted pieces about the community out in the field no studio work it is amazing work thank you well i'd like to take this moment to i know i've been really busy and sometimes adverse things happen you know not only in the community but to producers and i just like to thank everybody here at channel 17 for standing by me and and some hard times and i'd also like to thank my sister and wish her a merry christmas and my favorite nephew because i haven't had a lot of time to to spend with them because i'm doing a lot of production but that's what really i'd like to do i'd like to volunteer in the community and i suggest that we need producers you know we need more people get a camera get behind the camera you don't have to be in front of it take a microphone you'll be interviewing a governor a senator famous musician uh it's just a great thing to do and watch the artful word watch channel 17 and come here and do a production and just say one one thing about how important doing this show has been i mean i it's it's given you a way to be in the community hasn't this show yes uh well i started out making videos and uh just as you know a few people familiar with my show can see the the sea smoke which i uh did with an analog camera but i i started at the bottom level at channel 15 not knowing anything and then i really got to love to run a video camera and and i crossed over to doing still work on top of that so but what was your question about the me in the community well i think that the program has helped you to be seen by people in the community too and given you a place right uh especially the Tibetan community it was really ironic to uh just to have them welcome me into their into their society and say you're you're one of our brothers this has just recently happened and they said you can work with us anytime that you wish so it's made me more advised i started off as a dyslexic kid not being able to read and watch dan rather all the time and i made myself very informed little did i know that watching dan rather in the news making me informed would make me into a guy that is not afraid to approach someone well maybe a little trepidatious sometime by where you approach people but people are willing to talk to you and uh really get a camera come to channel 17 and do this thank you james let's see james's ward channel 17 community producer ubiquitous and persistent wow thank you so much and uh i look forward to doing some more productions and keeping busy thank you so much well thank you guys james the artful word james is done some really great programming so we have some other folks who aren't here right now that i just want to recognize we have um jeff wyman who is a who is our channel director here who is really stepped up to the plate and um we have curbie done from homeshare vermont and curbie has done some amazing work here at channel 17 and also as a client of cctv productions and maybe you could do me a favor and get nick because he's right there and i'd like to recognize him um nick carter i've got nick carter here nick how are you buddy pretty well how are you good so we're honoring you as a free speech advocate for 2011 nick carter runs common good vermont he shoots channel 17 meetings he's in all around i mean just on a baseball team you'd be playing first second third shortstop pitching and managing you are just an all-purpose player thank you very much thank you and why is it important to you to work here at cctv cctv is a bastion of free speech in a more complicated and complex world that we live in free speech is more important than ever it's important that all of you are watching and that all of you are participating in the making of media uh we are media for the people by the people um so please always feel free to come down to 294 north monieski avenue and participate in the free speech process recently you were hosting the democratic caucus the live events what was that experience like for you that event was very it was a very nice experience i found myself thinking about the occupy burlington coverage that we also did here on channel 17 and some of the similarities of the uh the group decision-making process now it's important that you know coverage be given to established groups like the democratic party as well as not as established groups like an occupy burlington movement for example social movements are the fabric of our community here in vermont and throughout the world and um it's encouraging to work for an organization that is there no matter how much money you have no matter how much clout you have uh you could count on cctv being there thank you so much nick carter cctv and comma good vermont master network master networker and emerging tv personality well thank you thanks and thank you to richard thanks you know appreciate the coverage today and the loringland the true queen of free speech here in shending county and throughout the state throughout the country it's champions like yourselves that have laid the groundwork for great things to happen so it wouldn't be possible without the two of you well look a little luckily in a democracy you can have more than one queen that's my feeling so thank you so much thank you thank you to carl and to you and the rest of the yeah they're awesome so we're going to wrap our show and um go back to the party i want to just thank everyone for watching here at channel 17 in cctv's holiday party 2011 we've had an amazing year here at cctv we have um we have run a new project common good vermont for the very great success we have gone live with events that we never thought possible and we have um really created a community dynamic after 27 years was it 27 years that um i think we all can be proud of so thanks very much for watching thank you richard for being with us thanks for having me here